Problem description: One or more of the following tray icons Volume, Clock, Power or Network, are suddenly missing from System Tray and when you try to re-enable them from system tray settings, you notice that the corresponding check box for the related system icon is grayed out.

The easy solution to fix the missing notification area icons is to restart your computer and if the same behavior still occurs after the restart, then you have to re-enable them from the taskbar properties. However, in some cases, when you try to re-enable notification icons using the taskbar properties, you realize that the corresponding checkboxes are not available (grayed out).

In this tutorial you can find detailed instructions on how to fix the Volume, Network, Clock or Power icon disappeared & disabled problem on Windows 7 or Vista OS.

Solution 1. Scan your computer for viruses and malware.

Important: Before following the steps below, make sure that your computer is 100% clean from harmful programs like rootkits, malware or viruses. To accomplish this task, follow the steps from this Quick Malware Scan and Removal Guide, and then try to check for updates again. If the problem persists, then continue to the next instructions of this article .

Step 3. Customize notification area icons.

A. How to customize notifications icons in Windows 7:

1. Right click on an empty space on your taskbar and choose Properties.

2. Click Customize.

3. Click Turn system icons on or off.

4. Set Clock, Volume, Network, and Power system icons to ON and click OK.

B. How to customize notifications icons in Windows Vista:

1. Right click on an empty space on your taskbar and choose Properties.

2. At Notification Area tab select (check) the icons that you want to be displayed at the taskbar notification area & click OK.

That's it.

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